


TPZ

by mette



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 15:22:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2817026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mette/pseuds/mette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>October 2014. The WWA Tour is over, and all Zayn wants to do is get away. No schedule, no security, no photos, no people - and especially no Liam. It's just too fucking complicated with him these days. The tipi Zayn erected in the yard of his country house in Hertfordshire last summer sounds like the perfect spot. He'll hide out there for a week while everyone thinks he's in Japan with Perrie. He'll smoke weed in the nude, read the books Harry gave him, and scribble in his journal. At least, that's the plan. But it isn't long before his mind starts wandering to the very person he's trying to escape. And when Liam arrives in the flesh, unannounced and uninvited, Zayn is torn between shutting him out forever, or risking everything by opening his fragile heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	TPZ

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired mostly by a picture of a tipi posted on Zayn’s Instagram back in July. It had me thinking that this would be the perfect solitary hideaway for Zayn, a guy who seems increasingly fed up with life on the road and the trappings (and traps) of celebrity. The image stuck in my head and seemed to gather around it other things that happened this year: the weed video; Liam’s soft-eyed bed selfies; Zayn’s sessions with Naughty Boy; the apparent push-pull of the Ziam relationship, this fascinating hot-cold surface that sits over the top of some deep, unbreakable bond they have; and countless hours of conversation with a close friend about the unknowable Ziam Canon. I blended all of that with an imaginary country home in Hertfordshire as a setting, and the result is this little fic. It was written as a Christmas gift for said friend. I hope you enjoy it, too.
> 
> http://ziam-is-a-lifestyle.tumblr.com

  

**Tuesday**

Zayn closed the flap of the tipi against the crisp October light. Only when he’d double-checked that it was secure did he turn and begin unpacking. Kneeling on the hardwood floor, he unrolled his single, military-style sleeping bag. He’d had an old Persian rug in here for a while, but had tossed it out over the summer. There was something wonderfully sick about coming home to Spartan simplicity after months on the road, trapped in the prison of luxury hotels. The 10’ x 10’ platform on which the tipi was erected was made of hard, weather-beaten boards, recycled from an old shed on the property. He ran a hand over them now, almost hoping to get splinters.

When the sleeping bag was arranged, he unzipped his back pack and pulled out the first of the frozen curries. _Aloo Baingan_ he read on the label, written in Mum’s hand – potato and eggplant, his favourite. He set it aside with the biryani and some foil-wrapped naan. She’d made enough food to last him all week, bless her. The rest of the lovingly labelled Tupperware containers he’d brought down from Bradford were stacked in the freezer in the house, and he’d collect them at intervals over the coming days.

Next, he unpacked his books – a couple of the more advanced Bukowskis that Harry had recommended he move on to, _Where The Wild Things Are_ (still his all-time favourite read), his uncle’s beloved Qu’ran that he took everywhere in the world, and his own personalised, dog-eared copies of the All-New Ghost Rider, #1-6, which he’d carried around for most of the recent tour. He was aching for the final two instalments of ‘Engines of Vengeance’. But he’d learned that not even being the visual inspiration for the lead character, Robbie Reyes, could convince the dudes at Marvel to send him previews.

He upended the backpack, to ensure it was empty, and a thick black notebook fell out. Of course. His “journal” that he’d begun keeping back in May, again on Harry’s advice. It was all drawings at first, but over the months he’d started writing some things in there, too. Lyrics mostly, some of which he’d used for the sessions with Naughty Boy. But just lately he’d been writing something else. He wasn’t sure what you’d call it. A _memoir_ , maybe? That sounded kind of pretentious. Reflections on life in the band, on the road; just thoughts about that, and ... well, other stuff. Stuff he shouldn’t really write down, to be honest. Stuff he wouldn’t want to share with anyone. But sometimes it all just came rushing out of him and it needed to be channelled, to be caught.

He put the journal with the other books, and sat back on his haunches to survey his handiwork. When he realised he’d stacked the books and comics in two perfectly neat piles, strictly aligned with the edge of the sleeping bag, and only on “his side”, he swore and shook his head.

He knocked over the pile of books and tossed the comics casually across the boards, just to be contrary – just because Liam would disapprove. Zayn didn’t want to think about Liam. Time in the tipi was about getting _away_ from Liam, to be honest. Getting away from _people_ generally – the fans, the crew, the band, and, yes, even away from the boys. But especially Liam. As much as he loved them, he needed some space and the tipi provided it. It was his and his alone. They would never enter this sacred space. Never. Even _thinking_ of Liam being here in the tipi felt like a violation.

Still, he couldn’t help but imagine how Liam would mangle the word. He knew exactly the kind of tweet that would go with it, too:

 

 

Zayn shook his head again. It would never work. After a twenty-minute lecture on the perils of weed, Liam would monologue about Sophia for two hours, then be wanting to “duck out for a bit”. He’d come back later with two buckets of KFC. And Niall.

Zayn emptied his pockets onto the sleeping bag. Phone 2, smokes, lighter, cigarette papers, and from the back pocket of his dusty chinos a jumbo-sized sandwich bag swollen with the finest Malawi Gold. He kissed it. He’d first tried _chamba_ in New Jersey of all places. And it was stunning. He’d spent their first night at Met Life Stadium floating on a sea of stars. Or, as Paul later described it, “sitting on the catwalk staring at 80,000 smartphones like a fucking retard. The kids didn’t pay to see that shit, Zayn. Get clean.”

_Fuck Paul._

_Fuck everyone._

He scowled. He didn’t own much of his life anymore, but he owned _this_. This time, this space. Perrie was in Japan until the end of the month, where Little Mix had found a bizarre and devoted following among middle-aged men. (He’d smiled when he heard. He kept seeing the same few older faces in the 1D crowd – _worldwide_.) He was officially “joining her on tour” for the next three weeks. But the first week he’d actually spend here at home in Hertfordshire, at their country house on the edge of Dockey Wood – or camped in the yard at least. Nobody else knew, except management and Mum. He’d even lied to Dan and Ant about it, which was a first. The paps would be oblivious: the benefit of being “the mysterious one” was that, even if he were on tour with Perrie the whole time, they’d have no real expectation of seeing him.

He smiled to himself. He’d actually managed it. He was free. He could feel it loosening his shoulders already. While Liam shopped for bad cars and worse sports watches, Niall played golf with random rugby boys and stalked Olly Murs, and Harry and Louis fucked each other senseless in Cali, Zayn would do nothing. One week of life stripped back to the bare necessities. No security, no schedule, nobody telling him what to do.

Not even _fucking clothes_ , if he didn’t want them. He stood up and pulled off his loose singlet. He touched the clasp of his chinos and they slid from his bare, bony hips. He balled up the clothes and tossed them aside. He took off his necklace and his rings more carefully and dropped them onto the sleeping bag with his smokes. He stretched and yawned, enjoying his nakedness. He smiled, and absently scratched himself. Free at last.

He dropped onto the sleeping bag and lay flat, enjoying the feeling of the hard boards beneath him. He joined his hands across his taut, pale abdomen. He breathed deeply, closed his eyes and listened, starting the pre-meditation exercise his uncle had taught him. He listened for the sounds outside. What could he hear? The wind in the trees... a distant bird call... the faintest rumble of a truck changing gear, way down on the ring road near the old red phone box that had been a clear sign to Niall this was the place Zayn should buy. He let them all wash over him, let them go, and listened for the silence beyond. He found it, and held it. Everything arose from that silence, and fell back into it. Even him. It was where he longed to go now. 

“Fucking chav...” Zayn muttered, tossing the phone aside. He half sat up, leaning on one elbow, and reached for his smokes. He pulled one out angrily and shoved it between his lips.

He’d deliberately left Phone 1 in the house. He always resented that the team called _that_ phone – the management-issued Samsung “clean phone” with no personal numbers – “Phone 1”, like being in the band was his primary life, his real life, and everything else was secondary... Phone 2, Life 2, Zayn Malik 2.  There was no way he was picking up _Phone fucking 1_ this week. Not for anyone. He’d already told Sonia that. She didn’t like it but that bitch could go fuck herself. He’d only brought Phone 2 into the tipi because he’d promised Mum he’d be reachable. The risk, or course, was that he’d use it to break the bubble himself.

He’d lasted approximately eighteen minutes before checking his Instagram feed, and within seconds was sneering at a picture of Liam bragging about some new Lamborghini he’d just bought. Zayn picked up the phone to look at the picture again: Liam leaning back against the huge black car, arms folded, black wayfarers on like a complete fucking tool. Was he actually wearing Los Angeles Lakers team gear? How completely fucking predictable.

_Fucking chav wanker._

He dropped the phone again, lit up, and drew back hard. Lying back down, resting his head on his balled up clothes as a pillow, Zayn decided that Liam would probably be better suited to a life with Perrie than he was. Maybe it would happen this week. It was actually more than likely that Liam would head off to Tokyo for a “coincidentally” aligned holiday, and he’d meet up with Perrie when he was trying to find Zayn. Maybe they’d hit it off. She and Liam were so fucking alike, in some ways. Zayn was fond of Perrie, but she did have an insatiable hunger for “things”: she’d moved on from accumulating pets and dresses and jewellery, to cars and houses and, more recently, staff. He’d arrived home from the tour last night to find ten fucking people in the house. He initially thought he had the wrong address, but the “butler” greeted him by name, the two chefs were making something he apparently liked (they were wrong, judging by the smell), and his personal home help, who he’d never met, boasted that she’d already unpacked a selection of his favourite underwear. Would he like to slip into some before dinner?

While Zayn wondered if he’d actually heard the question correctly, his eyes had wandered to the backyard. Through the plate glass door, which one of the housekeepers was furiously Windexing, he could see what looked like groundsmen – _he had groundsmen now?_ – raking a carpet of oak leaves into a burning pile. Beyond them, through the haze of bluish smoke, just on the edge of the woods, he saw the tipi was still there and knew he was saved.

“Get out, all of you,” he said, surprised at his commanding tone. “You’re all off for two weeks holiday, on full pay. Starting tonight. Starting _now_. _Go_.”

They left. He’d sat on the sofa for half an hour just to calm down, then spent another wandering around the house looking at all the stuff Perrie had accumulated while he’d been away: new furniture, new carpet, new art on the walls (bad, tasteless, _wrong_ ), an endless array of appliances, racks and racks of clothing in her dressing room. Had the guest bathroom been redone? Or had it always had that awful Jacuzzi in it? At least that enormous linen press with enough fluffy towels and comfy robes for a tour crew looked inviting. Was that new? He wasn’t quite sure. He’d been here only a handful of times since they bought the place. He shook his head. It wasn’t healthy to feel like a stranger in your own home. As he came back downstairs he noticed his music room – the one place done to his taste, with low light, deep black leather couches, some framed platinum albums and other collectibles plus the best hi-fi equipment he could find. He also had Yaser’s old turntable in there, and all of his CDs from when he was a kid. The room was soundproof and had a glass door, just like a studio, and through it he could see that this room was untouched, mercifully. At least she’d respected that. Then again, it might just be an accident – music was never really Perrie’s thing.

It would never work with Perrie, he thought now, lying in the tipi. He’d known that for a while. They were so unalike. It was only a matter of time before they called it off. He rolled onto his side, curling slightly, and rubbing his arms against the cold. His left fingers absently traced the lines of the Perrie tattoo. Some people thought it was actually Liam, cunningly disguised. It wasn’t. Zayn had designed it, drawn every last detail, wholly believing it was a portrait of Pez. It was only when he saw the posts on Tumblr pointing out the connections to Liam – the birth mark, the t-shirt, the v-lines, the belt – that he realised what he’d subconsciously done. It wasn’t that he saw them as similar. (Sure, he hated Liam’s grasping materialism, but he knew, in his heart, that Liam and Perrie were as different as two people could be. How had Louis described him? Strong, noble, perfect and warm. Best thing Louis ever said.) It was that dating Perrie was actually _all about Liam_. He’d hooked up with Perrie to punish Liam for being with Danielle. He’d proposed to Perrie to punish him further still. Yes, management supported it, and milked it at will, but it was Zayn who’d raised the idea because he wanted to hurt Liam even more. He wanted to see undisguisable pain in Liam’s eyes whenever he looked at him, because even that was better than thinking Liam felt nothing at all.

  

 

**Wednesday**

Zayn opened his eyes on the soft grey light. Curled in the sleeping bag, his body resembled a pile of broken sticks. One brittle arm slowly emerged to palm the floor for his lighter and the stub of a joint. He’d smoked _chamba_ for four hours the night before, peeling back the skin of the tipi on one side to let the smoke out and the view in. He’d lain there in the deepening cold, looking at the stars above the tree line. He’d been hoping the weed and the expansive view would carry him into a kind of blank, chilled oblivion. But before long he’d found himself remembering another night spent staring at the stars – lying on his back in the grass at Harry’s father’s place, his knee against Liam’s, promising him that one day they’d go see the Northern Lights.

He hadn’t slept well, and it wasn’t the weed, nor the hard, draughty floorboards. The military-grade sleeping bag was cosy enough. He’d been dreaming. They were back on the road again, already, driving between American cities in a convoy of buses. Zayn was on one bus, and Liam was on the other. They were heading out of the city, and Zayn kept thinking, _At the next lights, when we stop, I’ll jump out and quickly switch buses. It’s fine. It’s no problem. There’s plenty of time._ But each time they stopped at an intersection, he was just at the point of asking the driver to open the door, when the lights changed and they moved off. It happened every time. Then, as his anxiety level rose, it got worse. The traffic lights started to turn green _even as they approached_. Any minute now, they’d hit the edge of town, speed through the last emerald crossroads, merge onto a freeway, and his chance would be gone...  

He didn’t want to dwell too much on what this dream might mean. He sighed and kicked himself out of the sleeping bag, determined to make a good day of it. _Liam-free_.

 

After preparing a coffee on the small gas stove outside, he went for a walk in the bluebell forest, still naked, looking for the “magic mushrooms” Louis had sworn grew all over Dockey Wood. But every time he picked one, and examined it, not really knowing what to look for, he heard Liam advising that, to be honest, they were probably all poisonous, and, to be fair, did Tommo really have any idea what the fuck he was even talking about?

Back at the tipi, he decided to make a start on the first of Harry’s books, sitting on the timber ramp in the sun. He gave up barely twenty pages in. He couldn’t stop thinking about how, if Liam were here, he’d have sat next to him, peering over his shoulder, needing him to explain every third word, then asking with slight irritation if Zayn could please not turn the pages so quickly because he hadn’t quite finished yet. He tossed the book down and got up, trying not to acknowledge that he’d even left a Liam-sized space beside himself there at the top of the ramp.

Around midday, while retrieving another of Mum’s curries from the house, he had an idea. He fetched Yaser’s old turntable from the music room, and set it up in the yard at the end of an 80-foot extension lead. He played Hendrix and Marley on vinyl at full volume while he enjoyed a few more joints around a fire. It was forecast to be an even colder night, so he’d built one. With the waves of guitar chords washing over him, he’d thought he might disappear into the soundscape. But it was no use. He kept hearing Liam say that he really should turn the volume down a bit. Sure, the neighbours were half a mile away, but, to be fair, sound did travel quite easily out here. It wasn’t very neighbourly to be this loud.

In the mid-afternoon he went back into the tipi and pulled out his journal, thinking he might write. He looked at the last page he’d written, a week ago, and counted Liam’s name nine times. 

Zayn clenched his penis and exhaled forcefully as he came, shooting ribbons of hot sperm along his abdomen. He sighed deeply, his head lolling on the floorboards, enjoying the sensation of sweet relief. Eventually, he opened his eyes and looked down his pale body, and saw a fleck of seed had landed on the red lips above his sternum: Perrie’s lips, so everyone believed. They were wrong. It was the place on Zayn’s body that Liam loved most. It was the _first_ place he’d loved, too – the first place he’d kissed him on the body the very first time they’d fucked. The moment Zayn had slipped out of his shirt, Liam’s big hands were around his waist, pinning him on his back and kissing him there on the chest. On the heart. And it was the thought of Liam now that had brought him to orgasm: the sparkle of his eyes, smiling in the dark; the warmth of his big body pressed against him; the heat of his cock; his hot stubbly mouth at Zayn’s throat. One minute, he’d been imagining going down on that extremely hot Eurasian air hostess from the flight the other night. Then suddenly Liam was there in his mind, putting a shockingly quick end to everything.

Zayn sighed again, and used his dirty singlet to clean up the mess. It had been, what? Four or five months since they’d actually fucked, since they’d had their last little period of... what? Intimacy? Honesty? Weakness? Strength? Whatever this thing was between them now, this had been its pattern since the start. Never declared. Never really explained. It had started up again that night in Bogotá before the first show, back in April. He’d come to Zayn’s room around midnight. Zayn could tell he’d been crying, just from the forlorn set of his shoulders silhouetted in the doorway. He didn’t need to read the slew of dumb, pining tweets he knew Liam would’ve just sent to understand the source of such misery: he’d broken up with Sophia. He climbed into Zayn’s bed “just to talk, mate, that’s all”, but it had inevitably happened. There was just something about being there with Liam, in that space: not just the closed, intimate, suggestive space of a large bed in a darkened hotel room, but the _emotional_ space. When Liam was lost, broken and vulnerable, all the swagger drained out of him, there was a softness, a gentleness to him that took Zayn’s breath away - and what was left of his resolve. Lying there in his soft grey t-shirt, eyes puffy with grief, talking about his feelings, Zayn found it impossible not to kiss him. Then Liam’s arms were around him again and it was happening for the first time in over a year...

The famous Liam Selfie was captured the morning after. When he took the shot, naked astride Liam’s body, Zayn wondered if anyone would know. Cal had shown them all how to set the image resolution so even the most devoted web detective couldn’t zoom in and see the scene or the photographer reflected in the ball of the subject’s eyes, like some latter day _Arnolfini Portrait_. (Zayn thought he’d like to take Liam to see that picture in the National Gallery one day, maybe in fifty years when nobody remembered who they were, and try in vain to explain it to him.) But being cautious hardly mattered. In less than a day the memes and manips were in, the best of them dangerously close to the truth. Zayn smiled at the memory because that part of it never _felt_ dangerous. The fandom accepting Ziam or Larry wasn’t the problem. The only danger was his own heart. The danger was in what he felt, even now, when he looked at that picture on his phone. He smiled at the memory. Liam’s eyes were still slightly puffy from all the crying and lack of sleep, but that wasn’t the reason he looked so gloriously fucking spent. Zayn’s breath caught in his throat as memories of that night came back to him, and he could feel himself hardening again. He put the phone down and reached for his journal. He needed to write about this. It was important.

At first he thought the rumble was thunder. It had been threatening to rain earlier, with ominously dark clouds rolling in from the north. When the deep note persisted, he thought it might be a low flying plane – very low. But when it suddenly cut out, and was soon followed by the sound of a car door thunking, he knew what it was.

Zayn kept writing. If he just stayed right here and kept quiet, whoever it was – fangirl, fundraiser, pap – would go away none the wiser. The back yard was surrounded by an eight-foot stone wall. He’d turned off the security cameras to give himself some privacy, but the cameras were visible and provided an obvious deterrent. Someone would have to be pretty determined or pretty fucking stupid to climb over that...

_Crunch._

“Owww... Bloody hell, Malik! That wall’s a bit excessive, to be honest,” a familiar voice muttered as its owner landed in the gravel on this side.

Zayn froze. It couldn’t be. He could _not_ be fucking here.

“Zayn!” the voice called. “Zayn! Are you here, mate?”

Zayn shook his head. It was him. It was not fucking possible. But it was him.

“Zayn?! Helllooooo?!” the voice called.

Zayn could hear him walking across the gravel to the house now, then knocking on the back door and windows.

“Hellooooo? Zayn? Are you home? It’s me!”

Zayn had all but stopped breathing. It was too late to make a run for it. But the flap of tipi was closed, so if he could just not move a muscle for the next few minutes, he might not be noticed.  Zayn could see him in his mind’s eye, standing there on the patio, maybe fifty feet away, decked out in his stupid sports gear, hands on hips, sunnies on his head, looking around, trying to think where else Zayn might be.

He was looking in this direction. Zayn could _feel_ it. He was looking at the camp fire, still smoking. Looking at the turntable and coffee things and the remnants of lunch – realising, with that big dumb head of his, that those things really don’t belong outside. So whoever had been using them couldn’t be so far away. Now he was looking at the tipi beyond them on the edge of the trees. Zayn could almost hear the penny dropping in his visitor’s empty mind. He was moving now. Zayn could hear his footsteps, coming closer.

“Zayn! Are you _in there?_ Are you in that bloody _tent?_ ”

Zayn closed his eyes and sighed. He dropped his pen into his journal, closed it, and slipped it under the sleeping bag as he heard his visitor clomping up the ramp – in brand new Lakers high-tops, no doubt.

Zayn lay there on his side, ankles crossed, hands clasped over his navel, savouring his last few moments of peace, while his visitor, on his knees, struggled to undo the door flap. With a final exasperated flourish, he flung it open and in popped his head.

“Haha!” he cried. “I knew you were here!”

“Hi, Leeyum,” Zayn said calmly.

“Bloody hell, mate,” said Liam, wide-eyed, suddenly noticing Zayn’s complete nakedness. “Make yourself at home, don’t you?”

“This _is_ my home, Liam,” he said. “Besides, it’s nothin’ you haven’t seen before.”

“I guess,” Liam smiled almost bashfully. “A bit primitive though, isn’t it?” he added, looking around.

“Just the way I like it,” said Zayn.

“Can I come in?” Liam asked.

“No,” said Zayn.

“Yeah, right,” Liam laughed and started crawling in anyway. Zayn raised one bare foot and pressed it against Liam’s meaty shoulder. Liam knocked it off, playfully, slid fully into the tipi, and sat up facing Zayn cross-legged. He smiled, quite pleased with himself.

“I was serious, mate,” Zayn scowled. “You can’t be in here.”

“Why not?” Liam looked genuinely shocked.

Zayn stared at him, and drew breath to explain, then decided against it. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, shaking his head. He grabbed his chinos and wriggled into them. A small voice in his head said it was probably better not to be naked right now. “What are you even doing here, Liam?”

“What are _you_ doing here? You’re meant to be in Japan.”

“Changed my ticket. But you couldn’t have known that. So why are you here?”

“I was just out for a drive in the new Lambo.”

“Really,” Zayn said cynically, reaching for his smokes.

“It’s true! I just picked it up yesterday. Didn’t you see me on Instagram? I thought I should take it out for a spin.”

“And you just happened to find yourself in the area? Driving right past my house?”

Liam nodded to the cigarettes. “Can I have one of those, mate?”

Zayn put two in his mouth, lit both, and handed one to Liam who drew back on it deeply, perhaps playing for time.

“Go on,” said Zayn, squinting through the bluish cloud between them. “You were telling me some bullshit about why you’re here.”

Liam took another long drag then continued with his story.

“Okay, you got me,” he sighed. “Truth is, I drive past here all the time when you’re not in town. You know, just to check on the place.”

Zayn raised his perfect brows. _Really? You come all this way?_

“Yeah, I know, it’s a long drive from London but, to be fair, I like to take the cars out for a run. And the roads are much quieter up this way, and swoopier. So while I’m up here, I swing by and see that everything’s in order.”

Zayn just looked at him. It was such an utterly ridiculous story, but also so perfectly, stupidly Liam, that it was probably true.

“That, like, isn’t necessary, Liam.”

“You and I have done a lot of stuff that isn’t strictly necessary, mate,” Liam replied evenly.

_But, by God, it felt fucking necessary_. Zayn smiled, and looked at the floor.

“I saw smoke,” Liam went on. “I guess it was from the fire out there. I was worried. I thought...”

_You thought I might be here and your fucking heart leapt?_

“Liam, you can’t be here,” Zayn said, blinking gently. “I’m serious. I need to be alone.”

“Okay,” Liam nodded. “I’ll wait outside.”

“No. I mean, like, I need to _be alone_. For a few days.”

“Okay, I’ll come back on Saturday.”

“Please don’t,” Zayn winced.

Liam didn’t move.

“What now?” Zayn asked.

“I don’t want to go home,” Liam pouted.

“Why not?”

“I broke up with Sophia.”

“Oh, so that’s why you’re here,” Zayn sighed. “Because you broke up with Sophia.” He was sensing an imminent monologue. Just then, he heard the first drops of rain hitting the skin of the tipi, as if Nature was crying in sympathy with his plight.

“It’s _why_ I broke up with Sophia, mate,” Liam went on. “I told her I wanted to go to Japan for a week, just to hang out with you while Perrie did promo, and she told me that was ridiculous. _‘You spent the last six fucking months with him, day and night, and when you finally get a few weeks off you want to fly halfway around the world to hang out with him some more? You’re so fucking selfish, Liam. What about meeeeee?’_ ” he said, mocking Sophia’s voice.

“She does have a point, Liam.”

“Tell me you don’t want this,” Liam said, suddenly serious.

“I don’t want this,” Zayn replied, simply and clearly. It was true. Mostly.

“You don’t mean that,” Liam said shaking his head, looking at the floor.

“Fuck. Just go home, Liam,” Zayn sighed.

It was raining heavily now. They could both hear it pelting the canvas. A sleety wind was flicking at the door flap.

“Cripes. Can I at least wait till the rain stops?” said Liam. “I don’t want to drive the Lambo in the wet. It’s dangerous.”

“You can wait in the house,” said Zayn. “But just until the rain stops. Then you go. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

Liam’s mouth dropped open. _Are you fucking serious?_

“Yes, I’m fucking serious, Liam,” Zayn said on his behalf. “I need some _space_ , man. Fuck! Can’t you just leave me be?”

“Whatever,” Liam muttered, crawling out of the tipi and into the driving rain. 

It only poured for an hour, but Zayn kept reading his Bukowski until late afternoon. It was only when the light faded and he found it hard to see the page did he notice how much time had passed. For some reason, he hadn’t felt distracted like he had that morning. No thoughts of Liam had entered his mind. Perhaps his actually being there, and being banished, had done the trick. He’d be back in London by now, patching it up with Sophia, no doubt.

Zayn was hungry. He still had some of the biryani and naan from yesterday in the tipi, but Mum’s vegan Madras was calling him. He crawled over and opened the flap, looking forward to feeling the rain-cooled air on his face.

As he went to climb out, he looked up at the house and froze. Liam was still there. He was standing in the conservatory, arms folded, looking out the back windows into the yard.

_What the fuck?_

It had stopped raining _hours_ ago. Hadn’t he agreed to leave?

Zayn realised he hadn’t been seen yet, so he carefully retreated into the tipi and closed the flap. He sat on his haunches and sighed. He didn’t want to go up there. He didn’t want another awkward confrontation, or another Sophia monologue. He just wanted him to _fuck off_. Was that wrong?

No, of course not! Fuck him! Fuck Liam Goddamn Fucking Payne! He could feel the anger shooting through him. Who the hell did he think he was? He should get the fuck out of the house right now. He’d go up there and turf him out physically if he had to. Well, he could try – Liam did have 20kgs on him, and a flash of unwelcome memory told him how at least one wrestling match with Liam had ended. He pushed _that_ thought away.

He could call the fucking cops. Or worse for Liam – Sonia. Either way the paps would get wind of it and this “holiday” would be worse than it was shaping up to be already.

_Fuck!_

Zayn sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Maybe he was being unreasonable. Maybe the road was still wet, and it _was_ getting dark, after all. So maybe Liam didn’t want to drive back to London tonight. Perhaps that was it. He was staring out the window to see what the weather was doing. If it didn’t clear up, he’d just stay over and leave in the morning. And he wasn’t going to come down and tell Zayn, or text him about it, because that would disturb him. Maybe he was respecting the privacy Zayn had asked for. He was just going to do the right thing by everyone and stay off the road, and stay out of Zayn’s way, and get a good night’s sleep – possibly in Zayn’s bed – and then head home in the A.M.

So very Liam.

Zayn sighed. It was hard to hate him for that. But it did mean he couldn’t go up there and get his curry. He’d have to settle for old biryani and stale naan, after all. Well, he had said he wanted things to be primitive.

He peeped through the flap again. Liam was still there, unmoved and unmoving. At least he’d taken Yaser’s turntable and LPs back inside, Zayn noticed. That was kind of sweet of him. His heart gave a little twinge.

Deep in the night, Zayn had to pee. He went out into the forest, keeping to the shadows. He looked back at the house as he drained his bladder. The lights were off downstairs, but upstairs one of the guest rooms was occupied. The curtains were drawn, so he couldn’t see in, but he could imagine what was going on in there. Liam would be sitting in bed, staring intently at his phone, trying his best to answer every question on his Twitter feed and follow anyone who asked and looked deserving. He’d have taken a long bubble bath in that generous guest bathroom after finding the enormous linen press with the fluffy towels, and probably used about five of them getting himself dry. Then he’d have called Karen to tell her where he was and that he’d broken up with Sophia again, and then Geoff would’ve gotten on the phone and tried to talk him out of it because she’s “such a lovely girl, and a right stunner, too, lad...”

Zayn smiled, despite himself. He almost wanted to go up there and tuck Liam in – or punch his stupid squishy face. He wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.

 

 

 

**Thursday**

The next morning, the sun was shining. The rain had gone entirely. And Liam was still there. Zayn was about to go up to the house for a shower and a hearty breakfast, when he saw Liam wandering past the conservatory windows, talking on his phone. Zayn retreated back inside. Surely he’d go this morning. _Surely._ He’d give it an hour. 

 

Liam was still there at lunch time. Zayn couldn’t see him, but he could hear the TV. Some bullshit American reality show, by the sound of it. That _Duck fucking Dynasty_ shit, no doubt. His stomach was rumbling, but the fast would do him good, he told himself. At least he still had most of the _chamba_. That was something. He reached for it now. 

 

The rain began again at dusk. His phone was dead, so he couldn’t see the forecast. But even through the _chamba_ haze he’d felt the storm coming on for an hour. The temperature drop, the change in pressure, the roll of distant thunder. Soon, the delicate patter of drops against the tipi became a deafening roar, and he saw lightning flashes through the skin. When water started dripping onto him from somewhere way up the top, then started running down the inside of the skin and puddling onto the boards, he knew it was time.

Time to get out and try to fix it. He wasn’t going back up to the house just yet. Last time he checked, mid-afternoon, Liam was _still fucking there_. He prayed he’d made a break for it before this storm came through, because if he wasn’t back in London by now he might be stuck up here for _another week_.

Still wearing only his chinos, Zayn scampered outside the tipi, slid rather elegantly down the slippery ramp, and moved around to the back of the structure to where he suspected the problem lay. He looked up at the apex and could see the issue. The skin had peeled away near the top of one of the poles. He’d need to climb up there and fix it, or at the very worst collapse the tipi and repair it on the ground. No fucking way was he doing the latter this week. He’d need to climb up – on something. There was no hope of climbing the tipi itself. It was way too slippery, and would never support his weight, slight as he was.

The tree behind the tipi had some low-hanging branches, some of them quite sturdy looking. If he could climb up there and reach across...

He shimmied up the tree with boyish ease, and crawled out onto the branch, oblivious to the bloody scratches the rough bark was leaving on his arms, legs and abdomen. He was halfway out along the branch, when there was an enormous burst of light and a deafening _crack!_ as the next tree along was struck by lightning. A branch twice the size of the one he was one, and about fives times the size of Zayn, fell past him in a sparking blaze and crashed to the ground below.

“Fucking sick!” Zayn cried. He couldn’t wait to tell Louis about that.

But it did confirm one thing. He should not be out here on this branch. He needed to get down and out of harm’s way as quickly as possible. If he could just reach that guide rope, tossing about on the gusting wind. It was connected to the top of the tipi, and if he could just grab it and pull it in the right direction, the gap at the top of the tipi could close. His long fingers spidered through the air towards it. He was tantalisingly close...

He grabbed it at last. And pulled.

_That should do it!_

_Or make the muthafucking hole twice as fucking large. Apparently._

_Fucking hell._

He knew the water would be literally _pouring_ into the tipi now, ruining everything. The sleeping bag, the books... the fucking weed! He had to get back in there. Now. Then there was nothing for it, he’d have to go back up to the house. He started moving back along the branch as rapidly as his pain threshold allowed.

There was no chance of running into Liam, he realised now, as he dropped from the tree and into the rising mud. He _had_ to be gone. If he were still here, there would be no way on Earth he’d be sat up there in the house watching this debacle unfold. Captain fucking Sensible would have been down here leading a rescue mission, even in his underpants.

Zayn tried running up the ramp but slipped and fell and rolled off into the mud.

_Fuck!_

He was covered in it now. He finally managed to clamber back up onto the platform and into the tipi. It was just as expected. Water was coming in fast. He quickly gathered up his things, folding them into the damp sleeping bag as an impromptu carry-all, then charged out of the tipi and ran for the house.

He splashed up the back steps and onto the covered patio outside the conservatory. The lights were off inside – a good sign. He tried the back door. It was unlocked.

Inside, it was quiet. He stopped, listening for some sign.

“Liam?” he called, cautiously. “Are you here, man?”

Zayn listened intently. The only sound was the distant thrum of rain on the roof upstairs, and the delicate _tap-tap_ of water dripping off him and onto the polished timber floor. It was just too quiet for anyone else to be here. Liam had gone.

Zayn dumped his stuff on the floor of the laundry and went into the kitchen. He needed to eat, and he was dying for one of those curries.  He’d been thinking of that Madras since yesterday...

But the curries weren’t in the freezer. All the plastic containers were out on the bench. Fully defrosted – but only partly eaten. Liam had sampled them all, by the looks of things, and found nothing he liked.

_Nothing resembling KF-fucking-C._

Zayn shook his head. God knows how long they’d been sitting there for. A day and a half? They’d be fucking ruined. He was angry, though he did kind of like the idea of Liam burning his stupid Anglo mouth on them.

But something wasn’t right here. It wasn’t like Liam to leave the place in a mess like this. He was fastidious. He’d have cleaned up before he went home, and probably even left a note apologising to Zayn for wasting all his food. Liam would never leave it like this. And that could only mean one thing.

The hairs on Zayn’s neck went up.

“Liam?” he called. “Where are you?”

He started moving through ground floor, room by room, looking for him, oblivious to the wet muddy trail he was leaving.

“Liam!” he called, bolder now. “I know you’re still here, dude. Come out!”

But there was no reply. He went out to the formal living room at the front of the house and peered through the curtains. The black Lamborghini was there in the drive.

Zayn went to the foot of stairs.

“Liam!” he called out, louder now. “Come down here! We need to talk!”

No reply. It was barely six o’clock, Zayn realised, looking at the absurd antique grandfather clock he just noticed graced his foyer. Another of Perrie’s “investments”. Liam couldn’t be in bed his early, could he? Zayn listened. He couldn’t hear the shower running, or the sound of him splashing about in the bath. He had an irritating habit of singing and whistling when he bathed, anyway, so he’d have heard that – from the patio, probably. But there was nothing.

Zayn was about to head upstairs when he caught, out of the corner of his eye, a glimpse of movement through the glass door of the music room.

Zayn padded down the hall across the rich carpet and looked in. Liam was sitting on one of the leather couches, his back to the door, virtually in the dark. His shoulders were slumped. Zayn knew that posture. He was probably in there listening to Frank Ocean and crying about Sophia.

He sighed and went in.

When he heard the music, he froze. The track was one of his own. One of the beautiful slow tracks he’d written and recorded with Naughty Boy earlier in the year – in secret. It sounded so good. There were twenty of them in all, enough for two whole albums. He’d shared only one with the boys, offering it as a demo track for _Four_ , but it hadn’t made the cut. Liam must have found the disc Naughty Boy had burned for Zayn – it was safer than sending around electronic copies. He’d left it in the CD player when he was last here back in June.

_Fuck. This was going to be hard to explain._

Still, this was a beautiful song, Zayn thought, as he stood there, still unseen by Liam, enjoying the memories of recording it. It was a duet with Emeli Sande, in this version at least – but Zayn had long ago figured out which lines the other boys would sing. Liam especially.

Zayn shifted his weight onto the other foot as he listened, and something in that movement – the way it changed the light or the air in the room – made Liam suddenly aware that we wasn’t alone. He looked over his shoulder, clearly frightened for a moment, and killed the music with the remote in his hand.

“Jesus, Zayn!” he said. “You scared the living shit out of me!”

He looked upset. He’d obviously been crying, but his face lightened as he looked at Zayn, then changed again, to concern, when he saw the state of him: dripping wet, filthy hair plastered across his forehead, his whole body smeared in mud and blood.

“Fucking hell! Look at you! What have you been doing?”

“Oh, you know,” Zayn smiled weakly, suddenly shivering. “Climbing trees.”

“Jesus!” Liam said, leaping over the couch and taking in the full extent of Zayn’s state. “Let’s get you sorted out, mate.”

He put his arm around Zayn and shepherded him out of the music room like a paramedic.

“Wait here!” he said, and bounded upstairs.

Zayn watched him go, all action. He wasn’t wearing the L.A. Lakers gear anymore. He had on a pair of Zayn’s chinos and a green plaid shirt. They both fit him perfectly, Zayn realised, as he bounced back down the stairs. He knew why. They were actually Liam’s clothes that Zayn had “borrowed” – in 2012.

Liam came towards him with one of the giant fluffy towels from the guest bathroom and almost smothered him with it, vigorously wiping his face and hair and moving down to his shoulders. He dumped it on the floor and grabbed a second towel which he’d draped around his neck, and started on Zayn’s arms and upper body.

“Stop, Liam,” Zayn said, bending and bouncing under Liam’s forceful attention. “I’m okay.”

“Shut up, you’re hurt,” Liam ordered. “Look, there’s fucking blood all over this, to be fair.” He shoved the towel into Zayn’s face. “What the fuck were you doing?”

“Trying to fix the tipi,” Zayn explained.

“Why didn’t you come and ask me for help?”

“I thought you’d gone. Yesterday.”

“Yeah, about that,” Liam muttered, but offered nothing further. Thunder rolled over the house. “I didn’t even know it was raining out there tonight, to be honest. I’ve been shut up in the music room all afternoon listening to your stuff.”

“I wish you hadn’t.”

“Shut up, Zayn. It’s brilliant,” Liam smiled, but ruefully. “We can talk about _that_ later. For now, let’s get you out of those pants. Come on, upstairs. Into the shower with you.” He tilted his head towards the staircase and led the way.

Zayn followed, reluctantly. He wanted a shower, but he didn’t really want Liam supervising it. He knew how that would end. He was already slightly aroused from all that vigorous towelling.

Liam strode into the bathroom, opened the glass door of the double shower, and turned on the taps. Then he stood there, hands on his hips, looking at Zayn.

“Come on then, off with those,” he said.

“Liam...”

“What?”

“This isn’t going to happen.”

“It bloody well is. You’re getting cleaned up even if I have to hold you under there myself, you idiot.”

“No, I mean... Us. This. We’re not... you know, in there...” He nodded towards the shower.

“Jesus, Zayn,” Liam muttered. “Just get the fuck in there and get yourself cleaned up. I’ll be downstairs.”

He left. When Zayn was sure Liam had really gone, he started peeling off his chinos. He felt kind of bad accusing Liam of a second agenda, especially when he knew the problem was more likely himself: peeling off wet pants was hard enough, but doubly hard with an erection. Maybe he should take this shower cold.

He changed his mind when the warm water hit him. He pushed the hot lever further around, and stood under the searing heat, feeling the last few days of primitivism washing off him and wondering if he’d been right to want that after all. He was looking forward to a night in a real bed, with clean sheets, and some _fucking food_ , even if they had to get takeaway delivered from Luton. There was something kind of nice about all of this comfort. And something very nice about being looked after by Liam.

_Fucking Liam_...

Zayn’s cock was even harder now. He could feel his breath dragging in his chest, and it wasn’t just the steam from the shower. He tried to stop thinking about him, but that only made it worse. He would _not_ fuck him tonight. He had to promise himself that. He didn’t even _like_ the guy that much anymore. He was so fucking annoying. Liam would stay over tonight, of course, with the weather the way it was, but he wouldn’t be sleeping in Zayn’s bed, that’s for sure. He’d just have to stay away from him. Sit on the other couch. Out of reach. Avoid enclosed spaces. He could manage that, couldn’t he? Surely that was viable, he told himself, as he stood there under the flowing water, eyes closed. He just had to keep away from Liam’s hands until morning.

Liam’s hands were on him now. Suddenly he was there, behind Zayn, there and naked, his forearms looping around Zayn’s waist, his chest pressing into Zayn’s back, his lips at his throat. Zayn could feel Liam’s cock, hot and hard, pressing into the small of his back. He tried to turn around, his heart racing fit to kill him, but Liam locked his arms around him more tightly, one hand closing around Zayn’s cock, the other pushing back on his abdomen, bringing them closer still, while he slowly, agonisingly, kissed Zayn’s neck.

Zayn whimpered and all but collapsed into him, but Liam took the weight. It was too much for Zayn, too much all once, the heat and the water, and Liam being there with him like this, after all these months of denial. It had to stop. Now. But Liam just kept kissing his neck, one hand gently stroking Zayn's cock as the other moved up to play with his nipples. It was fucking torture. It had to stop. He never wanted it to end.

“Stop...” Zayn managed to whisper. “Stop or I’ll...”

“What?” Liam whispered back, but firmly, his mouth at Zayn’s ear. “What are you going to do to me?”

He turned Zayn around in his arms, and met his eyes, looking for an answer. Zayn just blinked, almost deliriously. He had nothing. Liam leaned in kissed him on the mouth like Zayn had wanted him to for weeks, his hand still stroking Zayn’s cock between them, loving the way Zayn gave a little breathless moan every time his fingers touched the head of it, then slid back to the base and teased his balls.

Liam kissed him again, deeply this time, then pushed him gently towards the tiled wall, pinning him there with his legs, and kissed him some more. Then he broke from his mouth and started kissing his way down Zayn’s throat, his collarbones, his chest, each nipple, falling slowly to his knees as he went, Zayn’s hands pawing at his hair all way. When Liam was on his knees, he slid his hands over Zayn’s hips and buttocks, then across the front of his thighs, avoiding his genitals, savouring the way it made Zayn shake in anticipation. He looked up at him, wanting to see the desire in his eyes, wanting to see him ask for it. Beg for it.

When Zayn nodded, Liam smiled, then leaned in and closed his mouth over Zayn’s cock. It was over in moments. To be honest, Zayn had been on the verge of orgasm since Liam brought out the towels. Liam just had to swirl his tongue over the head a few times and take him once to the back of his throat and Zayn was cumming, shooting a hot jet into Liam’s mouth, which he eagerly swallowed. Liam released him from his mouth and stroked him hard, loving the way Zayn’s hips bucked as he whimpered and the rest of his sperm shot onto Liam’s shoulder, then washed away.

He stood up and cupped Zayn’s face in his hands, and kissed him again. Zayn finally found the strength to put his arms around Liam and kiss him back, falling into him, wanting to fall forever. He could feel Liam’s cock pressing between them, and glanced down.

“What about you?” Zayn smiled, reaching for it.

“Not here,” said Liam, gently batting his hand away.

He shut off the water, then took Zayn by the hand and led him out of the shower. He grabbed one of the fresh towels he’d brought with him and wiped the water from his own face, then dried Zayn with it. Then he picked up another and dried himself. He looked at Zayn’s body. He was clean now, and the cuts were not as bad as he’d feared, but he still looked weak.

“Come here,” he said, reaching out his hand.

As Zayn moved towards him, he scooped him up and carried him into the guest room. He lowered him onto the unmade bed, in one easy movement, then climbed on, too. They lay there side by side for a few moments, just looking at each other. Liam reached up and pushed the damp hair out of Zayn’s eyes.

Zayn went to speak, but Liam put a finger to his lips to silence him.

“Don’t say a word,” he soothed. “Just let it happen.”

_Just let it happen,_ Zayn thought.That’s what he’d been fighting against for months. His desire for _this_ , for _Liam_. But it wasn’t the sex he was wanting and fighting, or not only that. It was the feeling that went with it. One in particular. The one overwhelming emotion that made this act, that could be so banal with another, so earth-shatteringly wonderful with Liam. This was an expression of it. But he didn’t want to name it.

Liam was on top of him now, gently parting Zayn’s legs with a knee, getting into position. Zayn looked up. Kneeling between his thighs, Liam was sitting back on his heels, all chest and shoulders, smiling as rolled on a condom (he’d insisted from the start, “it’s more _hygienic_ for both of us!”) and dribbled some lube onto his arching cock. Could there be a finer sight than Liam Payne in this moment? Zayn wondered. Now that would be a golden selfie. Liam left some lube on his fingers, then reached down and gently applied it to Zayn. Zayn sighed and closed his eyes, and felt himself opening up to Liam’s touch. It didn’t take much. Then Liam was on top of him, lowering himself, and slowly pushing inside him, always so gentle, always asking silently with his eyes if Zayn was okay, if it was too soon, too big, too much, and Zayn shaking his head, blinking softly, telling him to go on.

Zayn closed his arms around Liam’s broad tanned back as he started gently thrusting, leaning in and kissing Zayn’s face and neck the whole time. Zayn loved the sound of Liam’s breathing, and his whispered soft affections; loved how he could tell when Liam was getting close. _This_ was the Liam he loved. Not the chav wanker, not the wannabe fireman, or the X-Factor geek. This Liam. This one. _His_ Liam. The one only he knew.

He knew if he reached up now and delicately stroked the soft skin on Liam’s sides with his fingertips and thumbed his nipples, he could make him cum almost instantly. He didn’t this time, because he was close to cumming again himself. Liam could tell from Zayn’s eyes, too, and held on for a minute longer. When he saw Zayn’s eyes roll back and heard him gasp, he knew it was time. With a few final thrusts he arched his back, and cried out, emptying himself, then collapsed onto Zayn as carefully as he could – and tearfully, as always. There was something about this moment that always made him cry. But only with Zayn. Never with Sophia or Danielle. Only with Zayn.  He pressed his face into the soft pillow beside Zayn’s, then turned away, like that would make a difference, like he could or even should hide such a thing from him. Still, he felt vaguely ashamed of it.

“Are you okay?” he asked Zayn, again as he always did, projecting his own tearfulness onto him. He always worried he was too rough, too big, too _something_ for Zayn’s small body. But Zayn always just smiled and told him it was cool.

Liam rolled off, and went into the bathroom to clean himself up. When he came back he slipped into the bed and turned on his side, his back to Zayn. He felt Zayn curl around him, settling snugly into his favourite starting position. Over the course of any night they’d ever spent together, they’d switch, with Liam invariably ending up the big spoon by morning, often waking with Zayn’s head burrowed into his armpit. But it was nice for Liam to start like this, to be held in this moment when he felt most vulnerable, especially by the person whose judgement he feared most.

Sometimes they would talk. Liam had so much he wanted to talk about tonight – _those fucking songs for one thing_ – but he knew from long experience to let Zayn take the lead here. Zayn had obviously made some big decisions over the last few months. They’d talk about _that_ eventually. But right now, being here in his arms was enough. 

Zayn woke in the middle of night wondering where he was. The sheets were cool against his body, and the room was warm. Then the memories came – the storm, the tipi, the shower, Liam...

_Fuck, Liam._ He smiled to himself.

So why was he in this big bed alone? He rolled over, and found Liam was there after all. He seemed to be far off, on the other side of the bed, but he was awake and watching him. He looked immeasurably sad.

“Are you ok, babe?” Zayn asked, stretching out and touching his cheek.

_Babe._

He hadn’t called Liam that for years.

“I’m fine,” Liam smiled weakly, but then sniffed and wiped away a tear.

It was still raining outside, drumming steadily against the roof. A rumble of distant thunder rolled through. Zayn snuggled down. It was nice to be here – with him. Not out there shivering in the tipi. But he didn’t like these tears.

“What’s wrong, then?” Zayn asked.

“You.”

“What about me?”

“You know what.”

“I don’t. You’ll have to tell me.”

Liam waited a few moments before replying.

“You’re leaving the band.”

“What?”

“Those songs, with Naughty Boy. You’re going solo. Imsoupset.”

Zayn smiled, eyes wide, then started to chuckle when Liam looked offended.

“Oh, that’s funny is it, Zayn? Breaking my fucking heart like this? Not to mention ruining the band! After everything we’ve been through, you go and record a whole fucking album in secret and you think it’s funny that I’m hurt?”

Zayn shook his head, but he couldn’t stop giggling.

“I fucking _cried_ Zayn,” Liam went on. “For an hour! For a whole _fucking hour_ when I figured it out! And the songs, Zayn! Jesus, mate, they’re so fucking good! I can’t believe you didn’t share them with us. I was sat there in that music room of yours blubbering like a girl, and I still don’t know what was making me cry more, to be honest: the thought of you leaving us, or how good the fucking songs were.”

Zayn had stopped laughing. He looked at Liam, savouring the moment before everything changed. He wanted to remember his face.

“I thought you were crying because those songs are all about you,” he said evenly.

Liam frowned. “What?”

“They’re about you, Liam,” he repeated. “Every one of them.”

“I don’t understand. How could they... What are you saying, Zayn?”

Zayn looked into Liam’s eyes and knew this was the moment. He’d been fighting it for months. Years. It was the thought he’d resisted, the thing he wouldn’t let enter his mind. But tonight, when Liam was fucking him, he just knew.

“I’m in love with you, Liam. I’ve spent four years fighting it. I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried making myself hate you, hiding out up here, proposing to Perrie. Gambling that something would pay off. Something would cure me, or cure you. Maybe if I punished you enough – for what you did with Danielle, or for being such a _dumb chav fuck_...”

“Hey, steady on. To be fair, you can be a bit of a...”

“Shut up, Liam,” said Zayn, but fondly. “I’ve waited four years to say this. And I’ve listened to, like, four thousand hours of your heartbroken monologues. For once you can listen to mine.”

“Sorry,” Liam said, looking abashed. “I just...”

“Shut up,” Zayn repeated. He waited, to be sure Liam wasn’t going to speak again. Then he went on.

“I didn’t come up here because I needed to ‘get away from it all’. I came up here to get away from _you_. That fucking tipi. I just thought if there was a place in the world that you couldn’t be, I’d be safe.”

“Safe? Am I that awful?”

“No!” said Zayn. “You’re too fucking wonderful. I couldn’t be around you and not be _with you_. It was killing me. I had to get away from you. It’s why I do a lot of things, Liam – smoke so much weed, hang out mainly with Louis, fuck Perrie, go off with Dan and Ant, hole up in Bradford, vanish for days, mock you on stage... God, even that is a way of putting distance between us. Singing love songs to you on stage started out as a kind of in-joke, back in the day. Remember? When we were fucking regularly on the first tour? It was sweet, and it made the Ziam girls squeal. But lately, this last tour, I was doing it to _mock_ you, Liam. To make a _joke_ out of what I once felt for you. But then I realised I _still feel it_ , and these last few months, when I sang to you with that mocking smile on my face, taking the piss, it actually felt like I was mocking myself.”

“It never felt like mockery,” said Liam quietly. He frowned. “Is that a word?”

“Yes, Liam, it’s a word,” Zayn sighed. “Now shoosh.”

“Sorry. Again,” Liam whispered. But at least he was kind of smiling now.

“I spoke to Harry about it, I told him I was confused. He said I should write about it. He gave me some books to read, and a journal, and told me I should just write it all down. Whatever I felt. About you, about everything. So I did. And what I ended up writing were _lyrics_. When I started the sessions with Naughty Boy, he asked me what I had, so we used them.”

“The songs on the CD.”

“Yes. But I’m not going solo, Liam. They’re songs for 1D. For us. And they’re all about you.”

“They’re _love_ songs, Zayn. They’re serious love songs.”

“That’s right. I’m in fucking love with you Liam. Haven’t you been listening? They’re all the things I feel for you but have never had the nerve to say. ‘I love you, Liam’, ‘I love you, Zayn’ – we throw it back and forth all the time, like banter. But it’s fucking _true_. I really do love you, Liam. I’ve loved you forever. I think I always will.”

“Even though I’m a ‘dumb chav fuck’?”

That wasn’t the answer Zayn had been anticipating. But this was Liam, so anything was possible.

“You aren’t that, not really,” Zayn sighed. “It just pisses me off when you make yourself look like a dick.”

“Thanks. I think,” Liam smiled, but Zayn could see his mind was already elsewhere. He was pulling back from this.

Liam rolled onto his back, and stared at the ceiling, thinking it through.

“What about Perrie?” he asked.

“It’s over between us. It never really began. When she gets back from Japan, I’m going to break it off. Management won’t be happy, so maybe we’ll play the beard game for a year. She doesn’t love me anyway. There’s some backup dancer bloke she’s more into, I think. Good luck to them, I say. She’s a nice girl, but I don’t really love her. Not like I love you.”

Liam didn’t reply. Zayn knew he was thinking about Sophia. Was it the same with her? She was a nice girl, but did he really love her? Like he loved Zayn?

_Did he_ love Zayn? In _that_ way? Zayn started to wonder if this wasn’t all a terrible mistake.

“You don’t have to decide anything now,” Zayn said. “I know you’re with Sophia, despite the tension. You might not even want this with me. Part of me doesn’t even care. I just needed you to know.”

Liam nodded slowly, but didn’t look at him, didn’t speak.

_Wow_ , thought Zayn. _Maybe I’ve finally figured out how to make Liam shut up._

  

 

 

**Friday**

Zayn woke to a room flooded with daylight. The clock on the bedside table said 1:24pm. He rolled over to see if Liam was there, and found he was alone. He guessed he might be in the shower, but he heard no whistling. He might be downstairs making lunch, but the house was completely still.

Zayn kicked off the sheets and went across the hall to one of the bedrooms that faced the front. The Lamborghini was gone.

Back in the bedroom, he found no note. Nor one downstairs. At least Liam had cleaned up the curries. Zayn would bet his life the plastic containers were even in the recycling bin. Typical Liam.

Everything in order.

Everything in neat little boxes.

He was probably back in London already, patching it up with Sophia, closing this little box for good. Zayn felt surprisingly unconcerned by that. Good luck to Liam if he could manage it. Zayn had tried that, and it hadn’t worked. 

It felt kind of good to be wearing clothes again, like he was coming back into the world. Wearing jeans and boots and a snug black t-shirt to soak up the sun, he stepped out into the yard. The sky was blue, the storms were long gone, and the tipi was still standing – well, sort of. The frame was still up, but the wind and had gotten under that loose flap and torn it right away. The whole front side of the tipi, facing the house, was gone, opening it all to daylight.

Zayn stepped up the ramp and walked through the open side, surveying damage. The interior was soaked, the boards drenched. But everything looked to be reasonably okay.

Then he saw it, in the centre of the floor. His journal, or what was left of it. He bent down and scooped it up. The pleather cover was intact, but the pages inside where completely ruined. White mush, veined with patches of blue-black ink. All of it utterly illegible.

He must have dropped it in his rush to get out. No, he remembered now. It had been _under_ the sleeping bag. He’d shoved it under there when Liam arrived, and then when he tossed everything on top of the sleeping bag and fled for the house last night, he’d completely forgotten about it. It had been sitting here in water for the better part of a day.

He dropped it back onto the floor.

_Fuck it._

What did it matter? He’d told Liam the gist of what was in there. That’s what most of it was: the angst and the agony of loving him in secret. But it was out there now. Maybe he didn’t need to write about it anymore. Maybe they could _talk_ about it. Or maybe not. Liam had left without as much as a goodbye. That didn’t bode well for long talks about love.

_Fuck it._

Let Liam do what Liam wanted. Zayn was done with hiding how he felt. He didn’t need a journal to pour it all into anymore. He was going to be open about it. If Liam didn’t like it, that was his problem. Zayn was closing the book and opening his heart. If Liam wanted in, it was there for the taking.

He looked around, wondering if the tipi was actually better this way. There was sunlight, and a good breeze. It would dry out in a day or so. What’s more, he didn’t need a tightly closed space anymore. If he was going to be open with Liam, acknowledge his feelings, did he really need somewhere to hide?

And the tipi was fun, too, in its own right. It might be nice to have it up here like this. He and Louis could come up and smoke weed and look at the stars. Niall would love it. Harry would want to put flower pots around it, and maybe Zayn would let him.

And Liam, well...

He heard a car pulling up out front. It was a deep and distinctive rumble, but Zayn didn’t let his thoughts runaway with him just yet. When he heard someone inside the house, he knew it was Liam. Only he would’ve thought to take the spare keys.

Zayn watched as he came out the back door and onto the patio, carrying several white plastic bags in both hands.

“You’re up, sleepy head!” Liam called. “I went out to buy us some lunch.”

He held the bags up proudly.

_KFC_ , Zayn thought. _I bet it’s fucking KFC._

“It’s biryani and Madras curry and some bloody eggplant thing,” he said, reading Zayn’s mind. He came down off the patio and started walking across the yard. “I rang your mum to find out what you like. She tried to tell me you were in Japan. But then I told her about the tipi and the car and the weather – I left out the sex, don’t panic – and she confessed that she was covering for you.”

Zayn wasn’t panicking. His Mum would be pleased it was over with Perrie. She adored Liam. She’d probably be happy for them. And Liam’s mother – God, this would be the greatest fucking news of Karen Payne’s life.

Liam was in front of him now at the foot of the ramp.

“It’s from that restaurant you love in Luton,” Liam said. “Your mum told me about it.”

_“Baltistan?”_ Zayn asked.

“That’s the one. Very traditional.”

Zayn chuckled at the thought of Liam going in there with Trisha’s instructions – phonetically transcribed – and even then completely mangling the pronunciation of every dish he tried to order. God knows what he’d actually bought.

“It’s _extremely_ traditional, Liam. You won’t like that kind of food.”

“Oh, I know! Your mum’s stuff nearly killed me, never mind this. So I got some Kernel for me!” he grinned, holding up one of the bags.

Zayn laughed.

“Where will we eat it?” Liam looked hopefully at the tipi.

Zayn considered it for a moment. Liam was smiling at him, eyebrows raised, ever hopeful. But there was something else there, too. Something unstated, and slightly nervous around his eyes. Was this Liam’s way of taking a first step towards him? Maybe he’d go back tonight and end it all with Sophia. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe that would come in the months ahead. For the moment Zayn didn’t care what Liam did. His own heart was finally open to the possibility of a life with him. For now, that was enough.

“Come on, then,” he smiled, beckoning Liam over.

“Really?” Liam’s face lit up. “Are you sure?” He was like an eager puppy. If he had a tail it would be wagging.

“Yeah,” Zayn smiled. “It’s okay, Liam. Come on. I’m ready to let you in.”


End file.
